Heritage Lottery Fund strategy

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The Heritage Lottery Fund’s strategic plan for April 2002 to March 2007 received parliamentary approval at the beginning of May, one year after the HLF launched its consultation ‘The Horizons of Heritage’. HLF received 315 responses, and organised seminars, workshops and focus groups canvassing the views of 600 people. The plan itself is available for download from www.hlf.org.uk/cgi-bin/hlfframemast. pl?K=27209. The final plan contains some shifts in emphasis from the consultation document, with two dominant and linked themes emerging. These are firstly, the ambition to raise public awareness of and commitment to the heritage; and secondly to broaden the definition of what counts as heritage.

Here, in summary, are the key features and programme implications of the new HLF plan.

FINANCIAL CONTEXT

The plan gives the following income projections: 

HLF describes these as cautious estimates, which it will revise annually. Readers should bear in mind that these figures include interest from funds committed but not yet drawn down from the National Lottery Distribution Fund –balances which are coming under increasing pressure from the Culture Secretary to have reduced rapidly (thereby reducing interest payable). The size of unspent balances sitting in the NLDF has been a particular problem for HLF. Responding to media and government pressure, the new plan gives the following commitments on reducing NLDF balances:

• introduction of Your Heritage pro-gramme (£5,000 to £25,000) with a streamlined assessment process and turnaround time on applications of three months
• aim to treble the number of Your Heritage grants over the next five years
• low-risk projects will be eligible for funding advances to assist cash flow
• awards up to £1m will go through a single-stage application (previous upper limit was £500,000) and a six-month turnaround time
• relaxation of partnership funding requirements (see below) should speed up the time needed to get projects up and running
• extension of project funding terms (to five years, see below)
• a 12-month time limit is to be imposed from project approval to start-up

Against its projected background of declining income, the HLF is rolling out a regional officer network. The plan estimates an increase in both staff numbers and administration costs of 30%, bringing its total admin cost to XXX%???CHKCHK of annual income and an overall increase in staff complement from 180 to 245.

MAIN AIMS
There are three core aims 

a. to encourage more people to make decisions about their heritage 

b. to conserve and enhance the UK’s diverse heritage 

c. to ensure that everyone can learn about, have access to, and enjoy their heritage

and six subsidiary aims: 

a. to promote heritage as social and cultural capital 

b. to broaden access to heritage sites 

c. to increase educational content 

d. to tackle heritage at risk 

e. to promote heritage as part of the regeneration agenda 

f. to encourage communities to recog-nise and value their heritage

and one more aim:

a. to bring about a more equitable spread of grants across the UK.

HLF describes this last point as a key aim for it as a Lottery funding body,whereas its other aims are primary to its role as a heritage organisation.

MAIN POLICY SHIFTS
Regional development network: The HLF’s decision to strengthen its regional and country-based operation technically predates the new strategic plan, but emphasis is laid on the role that devolved development teams will play in helping to shift the strategic balance of grantmaking through their work in capacity-building and pre-applications support. The England regional offices will all be up and running by the end of July and 33 new development staff will be in post around the UK (including complements in the Scotland, Wales and NI offices) by October. Other staff will be relocated from HLF’s London office to the relevant regional office over a longer time period. 

Targeted beneficiary areas: HLF’s regional and country committees will each identify five local authority areas (or sites within an authority) upon which to focus the fund’s development work, including soliciting bids as appropriate. The broad criteria are areas of high social and economic deprivation which have also received least HLF money to date. Detailed criteria have not yet been set.

Pre-application support: HLF will provide some cash for bid development particularly through the introduction of ‘project planning grants’ under its main large grants scheme (see programmes, below). In particular this should enable voluntary organisations to employ project development staff to work up proposals. The HLF is also anxious to get heritage organisations to do more work on audience development. Other pre-application support measures are the new local HLF development teams and increased promotion of good practice.

Support for broader definition of heritage: The fund will consider a broader range of projects, particularly those concerned with undesignated (‘unofficial’) heritage – examples would be locally valued structures, wildlife sites – and ‘intangible’ heritage, such as oral history, language, customs.

Funds for training: applicants will be encouraged to include training elements in their projects where these will enhance conservation skills, including volunteer training and apprenticeships. 

Funds for privately owned heritage: previously, private or commercially owned heritage was a ‘low priority’, considered for funding only as part of an umbrella project in partnership with a not-for-profit group. Now private owners may apply in their own right for up to £50,000 (more if in partnership) for projects to enhance public appreciation and understanding of their heritage site. 

Relaxation of 20-year rule on acquisitions: objects such as works of art or archives now need to be 10 years old rather than 20 to qualify for funding, as part of the effort to accept broader definitions of what counts as heritage. 

Support for ‘priority species’: this is an extension of HLF commitment to the natural heritage; UK Biodiversity Action Plan lists which species are eligible.

New match funding rules: 

1. Projects up to £50,000 will be asked to provide only whatever match funding they can offer, whether in cash or in kind. 

2. Applicants wanting £50,000-£1m will need to find 10% in partnership finance
Merged capital and revenue streams:

3. Projects for £1m-plus will still need to find 25% match-funding. 

Merged capital and revenue streams: The fund will no longer run a separate capital programme.

Simplified procedures: Grants pro-grammes have been restructured (see below), application forms are being rewritten and guidance is being simplified; monitoring requirements are also being streamlined. While the HLF gives a commitment to speed up its assessment process, it warns that more thorough pre-application support may have the effect of slowing down some applications.

Extended maximum funding term: After reviewing its funded revenue projects, HLF decided to extend its maximum funding term from the current three-year maximum to five years.

HLF promises to 

a. maintain its level of funding for Awards for All, and to increase it if demand requires this

b. allocate approx 50% of its annual grants budget to regions and countries for distribution to projects of less than £1m

c. allocate 25% of its annual grants budget to projects of £5m-plus.

Order the HLF’s strategic plan by phoning 020 7591 6042 or 020 7591 6255 (textphone). Or you may download it from www.hlf.org.uk/cgi-bin/hlf-framemast.pl?K=27209. 

The document is available in large print and in Welsh.